Comment by bobbiechen

I agree. Looking back five years, I couldn't have imagined where I am today.

I like the idea of "effectual" / "working forwards" (rather than "causal" / "working backwards") especially when the future is uncertain. To quote Cedric Chin quoting Saras Sarasvathy (via https://commoncog.com/when-action-beats-prediction/):

> If you use causal thinking, you’ll say something like “ok, we’re making carbonara tonight” and then you will work backwards from the end goal (carbonara for, say, five people) to checking for ingredients in your kitchen, to purchasing the ingredients you don’t have, to prepping and cooking carbonara for your dinner party. > > If you use effectual thinking, you’ll say something like “ok, what ingredients and tools do I have right now, and what can I make tonight?” You work forwards from existing resources; the end product is unknown. > >In a business context, causal thinking is “we need to increase sales by 12% by the end of the quarter, what levers do I have available to do that?”; effectual thinking is “we have some spare capacity next quarter: one designer and three software engineers, what crazy new thing could we build that might have value for the company?”

It's not for everyone but it works for me - my path has been very path-dependent and I'm glad to be able to chase interesting and unplanned opportunities.